Leadership Douglas County networking for a better community

by Joey Crandall

Leadership Douglas County, the long-running community leadership program, run by the Carson Valley Chamber of Commerce, is tasked every year with putting together a project that leaves a lasting legacy within the Valley.

This year’s class of students, who hail from all areas of the public and private sector, chose to take one of the Valley’s strongest suits, and help introduce it to the social media generation.

“Something we talked about a lot in developing this year’s project is the very strong community service presence in Douglas County,” said James Jackson, a member of this year’s class and a project manager at Jackson Quality Drywall. “I think growing up here, you don’t necessarily realize that other communities don’t have that same presence.

“Appreciating that, we wanted to see how we could help the service clubs and non-profits here.”

As members of the class toured meetings of the various clubs, they noticed a distinct commonality.

“They are getting older,” Jackson said. “The question sort of became, with social media, and the internet, how can we help them get younger, so to speak? How can we help them get connected with the younger generation and maybe help fill in their ranks a little bit.”

So was born the “Making Connections: Networking for a Better Community” event, set for Sept. 12 from 3 to 6 p.m. at the C.V.I.C. Hall in Minden.

“We wanted to create an event that would help these service clubs market themselves to a younger audience, specifically using social media and the internet in general,” Jackson said.

University of Nevada, Reno professor Dr. Bret Simmons, a nationally-renowned social marketing expert, will be on hand to speak on how to forward the interests of a brand for small businesses or service clubs and non-profits.

“He’s just a really savvy individual in this area and we were really privileged to be able to bring someone in who knows what they are talking about,” Jackson said.

In addition, a portion of the event will be dedicated for the service clubs to sit down and create a master calendar of sorts in order to see where all of the community events for the year are.

“We were hearing how some weekends would have three or four events, and there’d be a wide-open weekend three weeks down the road,” Jackson said. “We hope to maybe help alleviate some of those log-jams.”

And with small business owners encouraged to attend, Jackson said another bi-product of the event is that service clubs will be able to recruit potential members.

“It’s a venue for the service clubs to present themselves to people who aren’t a part of them yet,” Jackson said. “It’s a good opportunity to see if you fir with one of them. It’s for people interested in getting involved but not really know how. I know they exist because I was one of them.”

The event will be catered by Minden Meat and Deli. Tickets are $20 per person or $15 each for groups of two or more from the same establishment. For more information, or to register, visit www.carsonvalleynv.org.